Welcome to fly-eco.com, a new, unique, yet very simple concept in helping to protect our environment and saving you money!

Here are some frequently asked questions (FAQs) we've been asked which explain what we are doing and how we are doing it. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions or suggestions, we’ll do our best to answer them as quickly as possible.

What do you mean by 'eco' ?

By 'eco' we mean 2 things. Firstly we aim to provide access to the lowest fares, i.e. economical. Secondly, to be eco-responsible by fully offsetting your flight emissions, free of charge to you.

We help you to find cheaper flights (and hotels and cars) compared to booking directly on an airline's or other travel provider's website because we can frequently access special offers not normally available on the airline's own site.

For every flight that you decide to make via our site, we plant as many as 10 trees to offset your CO2 emissions. We are unique.

We also plan to invest at least a huge 50% of our surplus income (once we start earning surpluses) to saving rainforests and to projects that can reduce the eco-impact of aviation! No-one else does this!

Do I pay more for my flights by using fly-eco?

No! There are no premiums or extra charges for using our flight search engine, we don't add anything on to the cost of the flights as presented by the airline or travel agent!

Why plant trees?

Trees are being rapidly destroyed, yet they are a vital carbon-store and a vital regulator of weather and climate, so they urgently need saving and replenishing. We want to do our part to make this happen to try and absorb the increasing carbon emissions from aviation. The more popular we become with your help, the more trees we can plant and the greater impact we can make together! Did you know that -

Ten trees can absorb CO2 at a rate of 222kg / 480 lb each year!

Planting trees is one of the most effective means of absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere.

Trees lower temperature by breathing out water and providing shade from the sun; the difference in temperature can be as much as 10C / 19F.

Trees reduce erosion of soil and help to avoid flooding downstream.

Trees help to replenish ground water and maintain the flow of streams.

Trees provide wildlife habitats.

Managed forests can provide employment to local communities.

Where do you plant trees?

We currently have 3 eco-partners shown in the panel to the left. Our main tree planting partner today is "Trees For The Future". They plant trees in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Their projects are highly reputable and transparent and we’ll be shortly publishing more details on these. You can learn more about the projects here. As we grow we will plant trees in other regions of the world.

Does planting trees really offset the emissions from my flight?

Yes, normally completely, according to the length of your flight, aircraft type and especially number of passengers on your booking. For example, for a typical return flight between North America and Europe we can cover as many as 4 passengers by planting 10 trees!

Over its lifetime one tree, especially in the tropics where most of our trees are currently planted, can absorb 1000 kg of CO2, or more. This amount can vary and depends upon the tree type, location and whether trees are harvested or left intact. We aim to maximise CO2 absorption through careful selection of our tree planting partners.

Over short-distances a flight will typically emit 1000 kg of CO2 per passenger, so such as flight would be covered 100% by one tree, on average, but we try to plant more, depending upon the agreements we can get. A typical return flight between North America and Europe will emit approximately 2.5 tonnes CO2 per passenger, so when we can get a deal to plant 10 trees we not only cover your flight but potentially as a total of 4 passengers! That's what we are doing on your behalf, with our revenues, free of any cost to you! You just have to use our site, make a booking directly from the linked travel providers, and we take care of the rest!

How can my flight be eco-friendly, isn't that 'greenwash', isn't aviation a big polluter?

Aviation is far from being eco-friendly at the moment, and that's why we are uniquely trying to do something really positive to help mitigate some of these problems!

But it's not all bad news. A lot of progress is being made by the aviation community already, and even solar powered aircraftare being trialed and sustainablebiofuels with no direct land-use impact are being tested.

We are doing our little bit and hope to do a lot more to help promote and even invest in such progress. We'll be helping fund eco-projects and non-profit organisations which campaign and innovate to help reduce the environmental impact of aviation. We work with organisations such as "Sustainable Travel International" and the "Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials" amongst others, to keep updated of the latest developments.

In the meantime tree planting is a very positive step, it's something real that we can do immediately and for very many journeys it covers all, or more, of the carbon footprint of the passenger who booked via our site. However, there is much more to do and we ask you to join our initiative and support us! Send us your ideas via our contact form!

Is tree planting enough?

Yes and no! We are doing far more than anyone else and for many flights we cover far more than the actual carbon footprint. We’d like to do even more and we plan to increase further our contribution to environmental improvement projects and we also encourage you to do more to become more eco-conscious.

Fly-eco is young and we need to ensure that we invest enough of our income into improving our services, enhancing IT infrastructure, support teams and other growth needs. Once we've grown a bit more, increased revenues and actually start making surpluses then we plan to invest at least 50% of them into environmental improvement projects!

That’s a huge commitment and we hope you will continue to use the site, spread the word so that we can be successful in achieving these goals and helping to save the environment!

How good is your flight search engine?

Our flight search is one of the best available and the core of it has been used for millions of searches and bookings safely and securely. It deeply scours the travel industry seeking out great fares and special deals across hundreds of airlines, and hundreds of special offers with travel agents and even sites such as ebookers.com! So you have no need to search elsewhere, our search engine does the hard work for you!

If that wasn't enough, our flight search checks a myriad of alternative connections and even allows you the possibility to use different airlines on the same journey, offering you great alternatives if you decide you don't want to fly directly - just look out for the "self-connect" filter.

If that STILL was not enough, you can even search for the best deals on hotels and car hire! We want fly-eco to grow and become your one-stop travel search site - keeping everything nice and really simple but with all the choices that you need! We want it to be a benefit for your pocket and the environment!

Are you travel agents?

No, fly-eco.com is a flight search and comparison tool and we have various agreements with third party travel providers who are licensed to sell travel products to you; we don't sell them, they do, and your contractual relationship is with them. Our goal is to try and make it easy for you to search easily with travel providers and airlines and find the best deals and then whatever your choice, we take environmental measures to minimise and even neutralise completely the impact of your travel choices. To ensure that we can deliver environmental benefits each time that you travel, we ask that you come back to fly-eco.com each time that you want to plan a journey, not go directly to the travel provider. To summarise, Green Aviation and fly-eco.com are not travel agents, nor tour operators, and we do not present ourselves as such, but with your cooperation we can help to improve the environment one booking at time.

I like your website but I would like it to include…

Over the coming months we are planning to make progressive improvements to add user-friendly and environmentally-friendly features and partners that will help to reduce the environmental impact of your flights!

We'd appreciate your feedback and suggestions via our contact form on this site; we can't promise to do everything but the most popular suggestions will get the initial priority, but fundamentally we want to keep this site nice, clear and simple to use.

We'll soon be showing the number of trees planted, where they were planted, tonnes of CO2 avoided and provide an update of the eco-projects that we are supporting.

Thank you for using us and placing your trust in us! Please tell everyone you know about us!